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Isaiah Berlin described the intellectuals of [Mikhail] Bakunin's Red bureaucracy as a secular priesthood.

Noam Chomsky

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Noam Chomsky
Age: 96
Born: 1928
Born: December 7
Anthropologist
Computer Scientist
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Human Rights Activist
Linguist
Media Critic
Opinion Journalist
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Philosopher
East Oak Lane
Philadelphia
Avram Noam Chomsky
A. Noam Chomsky
Chomsky
Isaiah
Intellectuals
Priesthood
Berlin
Bureaucracy
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As far as U.S. intelligence knows, Iran is developing nuclear capacities, but they don't know if they are trying to develop nuclear weapons or not. Chances are they're developing what's called 'nuclear capability,' which many states have. That is the ability to have nuclear weapons if they decide to do it. That's not a crime.
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I don't use the social media but I can see the effects in my own correspondence. I get a ton of correspondence. It used to be hard copy and now it's a very limited amount of actual letters people write. So it's mostly email.
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You never need an argument against the use of violence, you need an argument for it.
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The very properties of the human mind that provide an enormous scope for human genius in some domains will serve as barriers to progress in other domains, just as the properties that enable each child to acquire a complex and highly articulated human language block the acquisition of other imaginable linguistic systems.
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The UN can go as far as the U.S. will allow, and no further. And it's bound by conditions that the powerful states, which means mostly the U.S., impose.
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Andorrans deserve much better than the rule of superstitious hysterics and extreme authoritarians, who try to instill obedience to their Holy Texts and chosen Divinities - and we should not fail to see that the terms are appropriate, if anything too kind.
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We should therefore be opposed to institutional barriers to that freedom: Military dictatorships, for example. Or states run by a Central Committee.
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States are not moral agents, people are, and can impose moral standards on powerful institutions.
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Anti-union propaganda has been considerably more successful here [ in the U.S.] than in Europe, even among working people who would benefit [from] unions.
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Control is the source of strategic power.
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Trump keeps the spotlight on himself with one act after another, assuming correctly that yesterday's antics will be swept aside by today's.
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So Marxism, Freudianism: any one of these things I think is an irrational cult. They're theology, so they're whatever you think of theology I don't think much of it. In fact, in my view that's exactly the right analogy: notions like Marxism and Freudianism belong to the history of organized religion.
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It's very hard to look in the mirror. We all know this. It's much easier to have illusions about yourself. And in particular, when you think, well, I'm going to believe what I like, but I'll say what the powerful want, you do that over time, and you believe what you say.
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The US does not observe the free-trade principles. Those are for the weak. So agribusiness is highly subsidized and pours product into Mexico and drives out Mexican farmers. Maybe they have to go into the cities, and they don't have jobs to support them, so they flee across the border.
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The basic principle, rarely violated, is that what conflicts with the requirements of power and privilege does not exist.
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If you want to end terrorism stop participating in it.
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I've often been struck by the extensive knowledge that people have of sports, and particularly, their self-confidence in discussing it with experts. . . . In contrast, when discussing matters of concern to human lives - their own and others - people tend to defer to experts.
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If workers are more insecure, that's very 'healthy' for the society, because if workers are insecure, they won't ask for wages, they won't go on strike, they won't call for benefits they'll serve the masters gladly and passively. And that's optimal for corporations' economic health.
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It's true that language is in a sense linear but that is as obvious as perceptual space is three-dimensional.
Noam Chomsky
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If voting could actually change anything, it would be illegal.
Noam Chomsky